THE NAVY.

ESTABLISHMENT AND PROGRESS. The infular fituation of the British dominions pointed out, at an early period, the ne ceffity of maintaining the fecurity of the people by the equipment of a powerful navy; for while the riches of the country invited invalion, its want of external protection afforded every facility to thofe Northern plunderers who poffeffed the advantage of a fuperior fleet; and the annals of England, at a remote period, are ftained with the perpetual narratives of the depres dations and enormities of thofe barbarians. Alfred, who fo well deferved the name of Great, fucceeding to his throne at a period when his people were in the highest degree depressed by Danish tyranny and extortion, firft refcued them by the union of valour and policy from the galling weight of a foreign yoke, and then planned their future fecurity by the eftablishment and fupport of a powerful and well-appointed navy. The bravest and best difciplined army, he found, could be of but little avail against an enemy, who by his naval fuperiority could choose and vary his points of attack at pleafure. He therefore determined to meet the invaders on their own element; and the very earliest of his naval efforts were crowned with fuccefs. His fuperior genius did not merely imitate the veffels of the Danes of Frifons, but conceived an improved model of conftruction. His gallies were almoft twice as long as thofe of the enemy, and carried fixty oars, fome of them even more; and they were in all respects better fitted both for progrefs and hoftility. By an unremitting and fuccefsful attention to his fleet, this great prince acquired the gloriou- title of Father of the British Navy. The marine force maintained by Edgar, the fuccefor of Alfred, is stated to have amounted to upwards of three thousand ships, but this is generally confidered as a grofs exaggeration. Ethelred, his fon and fucceffor, was obliged for want of a navy to purchase the forbearance of a Danifh invader; and in fubfequent reigns, the want of the great national bulwark left the kingdom ex pofed to the infults and fpoliation of every lawlefs ravager. In the reign of Edward the Confeffor the English recovered their military and naval character; chiefly under the conduct of his brother-in-law Harold, who, on the death of Edward without iffue, became king, to the injury of Edgar Atheling. Haroldappears to have been, after Alfred, the greateft of the Saxon princes; and like him he was fenfible that a well-appointed navy was the fafeguard of England. As foon as he became king, he was threatened with an invafion with William Duke of Normandy; and, knowing the great power and military talents

of

of the duke, he provided above feven hundred ships, which he ftationed on the coaft oppofite to France. Unfortunately a part of it was called off by the unexpected naval attack of Harold Hardrad, king of Norway, whofe life paid the forfeit of his unprovoked hoftility. William landing on the south coaft, almost at the fame time, faw his enterprife crowned with unexpected fuccefs; but the utility of a fleet was evident, as that of the Conqueror was, even after the death of Harold, blocked up in the ports of Pevenfey and Haftings; as fovereign of the land, however, he was allowed to be the mafter of the navy, which instead of oppofing augmented his power.

During the reign of the Conqueror and feveral of his fucceffors little occurred to mark the advance of naval character; few invafions of England were attempted, and thofe easily frustrated; but the recovery of the Holy Land from the infidels, which fo much engaged the attention of all Chriftian fovereigns, drew forth alfo the emulation of the English monarchs, and after feveral inferior attempts, the gallant Richard Cœur de Lion, in 1190, equipped a fleet of extraordinary force, both in respect to the number and fize of the veffels. According to authors of good credit, there were thirteen veffels larger than the reft, called buffes, or dromones, which failed with a triple spread of fails, about fifty armed galleys, and one hundred tranfports or veffels of burthen. Befides thefe, one hundred and fix veffels, which had affembled at Lifbon, coafted round Spain as far as Marseilles, and thence took a departure for Syria, without touching at any other land. All thefe veffels rowed and alfo failed. The policy or fuccefs of the holy war is foreign from the prefent fubject, except as it ferved to increase the navy by exciting the fpirit of enterprife, and furnished a motive for the @quipment of large fhips and the undertaking of diftant voyages. At this time the courage and fkill, of the English mariners had become diftinguiined, and Richard, in his voyage from Cyprus to Palestine, captured a fhip of uncommon magnitude, having on board eight hundred men intended to relieve the garrison of Acon.

In the reign of Henry III. the hoftilities between England and France occafioned a grand naval engagement, in which British prowefs and fkill were difplayed to great advantage. The fleet, compofed of forty fhips, was fitted out by the Cinque Ports to protect the kingdom against an invafion threatened by France, and placed under the command of Hubert de Burgh, captain of Dover castle, Philip D'Albany and John Marshall. They met the enemy's armament, confifting of eighty large, befides fmaller veffels, on the 24th of August 1217, but not daring, with a force fo inferior, to affail them in front, tacked about, and VOL. II. getting

getting to windward, bore down upon them, and funk feveral of their fhips, by running forcibly against them with the iron bows or beaks of their veffels. The archers likewife made great flaughter; but the victory was completed by means of a great quantity of quick lime in powder, they had on board, which being caft into the air, and blown by the wind into the eyes of the enemy, blinded them. The English either took or funk a great part of the fleet, and the event terminated the hope of invading England. This action is only mentioned to fhew the manner of fighting at fea in those rude times; and until the use of powder became thoroughly established, little further improvement was made, the fhock of fhips, the throwing of darts, the exertion of perfonal strength, and particularly in boarding, were the chief ordinary means; auxiliary to thefe were the ufe of dangerous and offenfive miffiles, the difperfion of quick lime, and the employment of burning arrows and combustibles for the purpofe of fetting fhips on fire. "In fea engagements," fays an author defcribing thofe in the days of Richard I. "they ftill preferved the ancient femicircular line of "battle, ftationing the ftrongeft veffels in the wings or points "with a view to inclofe the enemy as in a net. The foldiers, "stationed on the upper deck, (or on the raifed platform or "forecastle,) made a close bulwark of their fhields; and, to give "them free room to fight, the rowers fat together below. "When the hoftile fleets approached, the found of the trumpets

and the fhouts of the men gave the fignal for the engagement, "which commenced by a difcharge of miffile weapons on both "fides: the fharp beaks, or fpurs, were forcibly dathed against "the enemies fides: the oars were entangled: and the hoftile "veffels being grappled together, a clofe fight enfued, while the "engineers endeavoured to burn their enemy's fhips with the "Greek fire which was now in common ufe with the Turks and "Saracens, as well as the Chriftians."

GUNS INTRODUCED. The earlieft account of the ufe of cannon in naval engagements, is in 1372, when, by means of them, the Caftilians gained a great victory over the English before Rochelle, burning, finking, and deftroying most of their veffels. From that period, however, the Englith commanders began to employ their genius and judgment in the improvement of the means of naval warfare which they have brought to a degree of perfection which renders the British fleet the pride and defence of the country, as well as the envy and terror of its

enemies.

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA. From the earlicft times, the monarchs of England claimed the fovereignty of the British feas, fome having even taken the title of Bafileus quatuor marium, or

cmperor

emperor of the four feas. This right has been recognized in the most folemn manner, in repeated treaties, by foreign nations; and the acts of conceffion and acknowledgment which proved its being admitted, have been generally continued without interruption, until of late times, when the practice of requiring them has been difcontinued. Of the extent and nature of this claim, however, it may be fit to give a short account.

The four feas over which Great Britain claims dominion are denominated from the cardinal points of the compafs. Toward the east is the German Ocean, generally called the North, but by the Danes, Swedes, and other northern regions, named the Weft Sea and the boundaries on this fide are the fhores of thofe countries oppofite to Great Britain that way, as the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Southward is the British Ocean fo called by Ptolemy; one part of which is commonly denominated the Channel, or, by the French, La Manche, which divides England from France. This way the boundaries extend to the oppofite thores of France, to thofe of Spain, as far as Cape Finisterre, and to an imaginary line, drawn from that cape, in the fame parallel of latitude to their boundary on the west, thus taking in that part of the British seas which confifts of the Channel, the Bay of Bifcay, and part of the Atlantic Ocean. On the weft is that fea anciently called the Vergivian Ocean, which, where it washes the coaft of Scotland, is from thence called the Deucaledonian Sea. That part of it which flows between England and Ireland, is fometimes called the Irish Sea, anciently the Scythian vale, but now St. George's Channel, and the reft, the Western or Atlantic Ocean. Northward is the fea anciently known by the several names of the Hyperborean, Deucaledonian, and Caledonian Ocean, now the Scotch Sea; in which are fituated the Orcades, Thule, and other islands. The proper boundaries of the British feas for the weft and north, on thole quarters, are generally reckoned a line drawn from the beforementioned imaginary line, extending from cape Finisterre, in the longitude of 23 degrees weft from London, to the latitude of 63 degrees, and thence another line drawn, in that parallel of latitude, to the middle point of the land Van Staten in Norway; thereby taking in, to the west, that portion of them which confifts of part of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Irish Sea or St. George's Channel.

The fovereignty or dominion of the British seas confifts in an exclufive property over them, as well with regard to paffage, as fishing. The recognition of this fovereignty confifted in what was termed the duty of the flag, which was, that all fhips or veffels met by British men of war on thofe feas, do strike their flag, and lower their topfail; or where they have no flag,

that they lower their top-fail only, in deference to his majesty's fovereignty, and an implied acknowledgment that the prince grants a general licence for the fhips of his friends to pafs in thofe feas, paying him that duty.

OF THE KING'S FLEET. When England first found it neceffary to oppofe her enemies on the ocean, the navy equipped by Alfred was properly his own, but for a long period after his time, no fleet, and scarcely a single fhip could be termed royal. Some indiftinct occafional accounts are preserved of oars purchased for the king's gallies, mention is made in 1208 of a royal fhip, and Richard I. certainly purchased fome veffels for the crufade, but all these circumstances do not fhew any thing like a naval establishment. In fact, the equipments fitted out for war were merely the whole mercantile fhipping of the kingdom, preffed into the fervice: fo that in thofe times the owners could never call their veffels their own. By thefe means the kings occafionally collected very large fleets, as Henry III. for inftance, who obtained from all the realm above one thousand, of which three hundred were large fhips, to be employed against his malcontent barons in Gafcoigne. This monarch feems alfo to have had some ships which could properly be called his own, as mention is made of the king's gallies, in Ireland, and at Bourdeaux, and of a large fhip called the Queen, which he let for hire to a merchant.

Befides the feizure of merchant veffels, it was a part of the royal prerogative to call on the towns and cities throughout the kingdom, as well as the Cinque Ports, to furnish ships in a certain proportion for defence of the realm, or invafion of the enemy. In this manner Edward III. in 1346, obtained upward of 700 fhips, and near 15,000 feamen for the fiege of Calais. The lift is preferved, and, among many other remarkable circumstances, fhews that London only fupplied 25 ships and 662 feamen, while Fowey produced 47 veffels and 770 mariners, and Yarmouth 43 fhips, and 1095 men. Several of these were diftinguished as fhips of war, but whether they were built and kept for that exprefs purpose, or were merely larger and more fit for martial purposes than the reft of the fleet is not afcertained. Of the king's own property there were 25 veffels with 419 mariners, and for the purpose of building and equipping them, the king exercised the prerogative of demanding from his fubjects forest trees, and from the fheriffs of cities the materials for his anchors and other fupplics. The mode of obtaining a naval force by requifition from the different districts in the realm was practifed without queftion or doubt during many enfuing reigns, until the unfortunate attempt of Charles I. to revive and commute